Raikkonen laments “shit” Italian GP after tyre ‘f*** up’

Kimi Raikkonen endured a race to forget at the Italian Grand Prix after his Alfa Romeo team fitted the wrong tyres on his Formula 1 car, resulting in a penalty.

The Finn started from the pitlane after picking up gearbox damage in a hefty shunt at the Parabolica in Q3, with Alfa Romeo also opting to install a new-spec power unit.

Raikkonen’s crash-strewn weekend went from bad to worse when he picked up a 10-second stop-go penalty after it emerged that the Swiss squad had put the wrong tyres on his car ahead of the race.

Asked to explain the penalty, Raikkonen replied: “I don’t explain the penalty, I don’t know the rules.

“Somebody fucked up somewhere but it just happened. Plus that fucking set [of tyres]was completely useless.

“It was a shit weekend, really. There was my mistake yesterday, and then today, for some reason, we had the wrong tyres, I don’t know why.

“I think if I hadn’t done the mistake yesterday and if there hadn’t been that mistake over the tyres today, for sure we would have finished much higher.”

FIA race director Michael Masi explained after the race that there is no loophole in the regulations to allow teams to change tyres in the event of a pitlane start, unless an entirely new chassis is required.

“It’s only if you change the survival cell, the chassis, which they didn’t do,” Masi said. 

“So if they had changed the survival cell that’s when the change of tyres comes in.”